Luxe new grocery stores have become the must-have anchor tenant for developments across the city, including at three Northwest sites where new stores are slated to replace old, tired groceries. Developers hope that condo buyers, apartment dwellers and merchants will be drawn to snazzy new stores supplanting aging spots where shoppers complain the produce looks as wilted as the place.

“It’s a necessity; [a grocery store is] the anchor for a community,” said Susan Linsky, project manager of Shaw’s O Street Market redevelopment, which is slated for groundbreaking today.

When complete, the long-delayed “Citymarket at O Street,” as the project is dubbed, will feature the city’s largest Giant grocery store — 71,000 square feet — as well as a hotel, a restaurant, additional retail and housing. Market-rate condominiums and apartments will mix with affordable housing for seniors on the two-block redevelopment between O, P, 7th and 9th streets NW that includes the historic O Street Market, an 1881 structure that
originally housed a public marketplace. The Giant store now on the property is about half the size of the proposed store…”

Yeah, If you're going to have a WalMart, it might as well look as good as possible. I think they've done a very uncharacteristic but admirable job here on this one. I'm very curious how the other three will look.

__________________You slip me the cash and I'll slip you the wiener.<><><><><><>IMPEACHMENT NOW!

For me it can be reduced to this: For every personal freedom we gained from the automobile, we lost in social cohesion.

All of these projects are extremely exciting, and show just how strong the regional economy is. While other cities are seeing a few projects moving forward, DC is rebounding rapidly--did it ever really falter all that much, though?

The progress in SW DC is simply astounding, as well as when you're approaching the city from the NE (I believe it's NY Ave, but I'm not sure--I always come in that way when coming back from NYC on the bus, the NOMA neighborhood I guess?). Definitely seems like the hot area in town right now, and it's remarkable how it has boomed so quickly. I remember going there about 5 years ago now and there was nothing at that point--and now all of this! Within 5-10 years it seems like SW DC will be almost completely built out.

It'll also be interesting to see the greater regional shifts as development in DC becomes effectively maxed out in areas. As prices continue rising rapidly in the district, you can bet suburban districts are going to take advantage--I think Tysons/Rosslyn/Bethesda/Silver Spring should all do very well as a result of increasing price pressure in the District, particularly Tysons with Metro now ALMOST finished! (hey, even though it's still about 2 years away, that's very close considering EVERYTHING that's been done to finally get the Silver Line running!).

Montgomery County has a development underway for route 355 in the white flint area that is going to add gridded streets and walkable communities. Every strip mall is slated for demolition and multiple developments have already begun. The area is slated to eclipse Tysons Corner with building heights proposed that will eclipse 300 feet.

The new Paul S Sarbanes Transit Center in Silver Spring with three Mixed use residential towers around it. It will include an upgraded Metrorail, Marc Commuter Rail platforms as well as new Bus Bay's and terminal. It will also include a new light rail stop for the future purple line light rail train.

American U. has a fairly ambitious 10-year campus plan. The university plans to relocate its law school from the suburban Spring Valley location on Massachusetts Ave to Tenley Circle, near the Tenley metro station. American also wants to build new student dorms on what is currently a large surface parking lot on Nebraska Avenue.

"Morty's Delicatessen, housed in a drab brick building in Tenleytown and known across the District for its hot pastrami and matzo ball soup, was never very profitable. Or glamorous.

Its front window featured a cartoon caricature of its folksy Brooklyn-born manager, Morty Krupin. Its owner, the late philanthropist Cy Katzen, believed in the deli and kept it in business. Its customers, always fearful that Morty's days were numbered, would say that the deli would "go as the neighborhood goes."

So when American University took over as its landlord last year after Katzen died and left the building to the university, Morty's was on borrowed time.

"They didn't shut us down, but they didn't help keep us open either," said Krupin, 71, who is retired and lives in Boynton Beach, Fla. "We weren't in their plans and they are the new boss in town." American officials said they lowered the rent to help Morty's get by, but in the end, the deli just didn't make it.

After 20 years, Morty's closed in early November, unable to make its monthly rent. Residents and longtime patrons say Morty's closure is proof that the university's plans for growth do not include many of the small and long-standing businesses that dot the surrounding neighborhoods. American is too tough with its economically vulnerable and small retail tenants, they say, many of whom are still grappling with the recession..."

I attended a discussion about American University's 2010 campus plan last night. American University wants to convert most of the current surface parking lot on New Mexico and Nebraska Ave to student residence halls, leaving only a small amount of surface parking. American also wants to add more student housing on its east campus, directly across Nebraska Avenue from the Department of Homeland Security. Perhaps most interesting, the university proposes relocating the law school (Washington College of Law) from the current quasi-suburban setting in the Spring Valley section of DC (along Massachusetts Ave) to Tenley Circle, along Wisconsin Avenue. In addition to this, American wants to increase enrollment of its law school to 2,000 full and part-time students.

Neighbors were concerned about the usual issues of noise, parking, traffic, etc....

Here is a very informative presentation with renderings of some of the new buildings.

With this, the proposed Abdo development (http://facilitiesplanning.cua.edu/re...#256,1,Slide 1), and other development planned for the area around Catholic U. and Brookland, this could be one of the best upcoming neighborhoods in DC. You can get a rowhouse close to a metro station in this part of Northeast for far more affordable than most elsewhere in DC.

Clashing visions for NE's Brookland neighborhood

By Ovetta Wiggins
Washington Post
Thursday, January 20, 2011

"As Jim Stiegman peers out the window of his Northeast Washington tavern, he shakes his head.

"There's the Metro, but nobody's walking in the neighborhood," he said. "Nobody walks around in Brookland because there is no reason to walk around."

Steigman, who owns Colonel Brooks' Tavern, a landmark in the quiet Brookland neighborhood of rowhouses and single-family homes, envisions a vibrant urban village around the Brookland Metro station 10 years from now.

As part of that, he plans to close his bar in the next 12 to 15 months and build a six-story, mixed-used development with apartments, restaurants and stores that would take up nearly the entire city block between Ninth and 10th streets off Monroe Street NE...."